Some simpler stories this time. The creatures from a version of the Seven Pork Rinds were used in Realms of Power: Faerie, so no new stats. I like this because its a very early, particularly successful, confidence trick. Let’s start with some Burtonish faux-Jacobean.
Seven Pork Rinds
An old woman, a beggar, giveth a good beating to her daughter for her gluttony, she having eaten seven pieces of pork-skin, and maketh a merchant believe that she had clone this, because she had worked too much in filling seven spindles. The merchant taketh her to wife, but she worketh not ; but by gift of three fairies the husband on his return from a journey findeth the piece of cloth finished, and by another ruse of the wife he resolveth not to allow her to work any more, for fear that she should fall ill.
There’s a woman who begs for a living, and she has a daughter. She’s described in particularly nasty terms, because she’s poor, and that means she’s basically evil in these stories, which are written for the noble class. She is given seven pieces of pork lard with the skins attached, and asks her daughter to boil them, while she goes off to beg some greens from the gardeners.
The smell of the pork fat is too much for the girl, and so she eats a rind, thinking she can pay for it with blows on her shoulder from her mother. The problem for her is that much like peanuts, you can’t eat just one, and so she finishes all seven. She knows she’s going to get in trouble, so she cuts seven pieces out of an old shoe and boils those.
The mother returns and adds the greens to the pot, along with a quantity of lard a coachman gave her as alms, after he had finished greasing his axles. She then puts pieces of old bread in a wooden bowl and pours the soup over them. When the mother eats, she knows this is not pigskin. She tells her daughter “You have done me brown!” which I didn’t think was a period idiom and demands she confess, threatening to break every bone in her body..
The daughter finally gets a name in this story, Saporita, and she says she was confused by the smoke of the fire and did not put leather in the soup deliberately. The woman will have none of this, and attacks Saporita with a broom handle. The daughter’s screams attract a passing merchant, who bursts into the house seeking to prevent whatever calamity is happening. He says “Has she been burgling money boxes or something? This seems ridiculously extreme” and the mother needs to save face. She gets an inspiration.
“You don’t know what she’s done!”, she cries. “I’m a beggar, and she’s going to drive us out of house and home, by working so hard that she needs doctors and medicines. I’ve told her, now that it’s summer, that she mustn’t work so hard or she will get sick, because we have so little food. She ignored me and still filled seven spindles while I was out. If she gets heart disease and is bedridden for months, then what will I do?”
The merchant thinks “Seven spindles a day, eh? That’s some ready cash.” and says “Leave off hitting her, because I can see a way to fix all of her medical bills. I’ll marry her, and take her out of your household, and then you’ll be fine. I’ll treat her like a princess. He then describes how this wealth manifests to person from the time.
He says “By the grace of Heaven I raise my own fowls, pigs and pigeons. You can barely move in my house for food. I have casks of corn and pitchers of oil and a cupboard full of flour. I have bladders full of lard and smoked meat hanging from the roofbeams. I have a rack of crocks, and heaps of wood, and mounds of coal. I have safes of linen and a bed fit for a bridegroom” I’ll break in here to note that bed was often the most expensive thing a middle class person owned: they turn up a lot in wills. He continues “Best of all, from my rents and interest I live like a lord. I make about ten ducats per fair, and if business goes well, I’ll soon be truly rich.”
The woman puts Saporita’s hand in his and says ‘Here she is, live long and prosper” or words to that effect. The text notes the business with the hands is a Neapolitan custom, for its Veneitan audience. Venetians do a sort of Byzantine thing, which we mistake for an Arabic thing, with veiled women and women’s only spaces. It outlasts its source in Venice, I believe, much like, say my Cypriot friend in University found when he visited Cyprus that things there had moved on an his family’s customs were considered kind of quaint. We don’t get Saporita’s assent, but if the choices are being beaten with a broom on the regular, or lucky dip with some random dude who seems to object to the broom business, you can see why she might roll the dice.
He gets her home, and then says “Off to buy some flax, dearest”. When he comes home he says “Don’t be afraid. Unlike your mum, I won’t break your bones for spinning. For every ten spindles I’ll give you ten kisses, and for every distaff full I’ll give you my heart.” Then he says he needs to travel to a fair and will be gone about twenty days. If she’s spun a heap of flax by the time he gets back, he’ll buy her a “”fine pair of sleeves of Russian cloth, trimmed with green velvet”. She tells him to pop off, it’s all in hand. It’s as easy as milking a black goat. That sounds weird, but he’s cool with it and exits stage left.
Saporita is a greedy girl ,according to the story, but I doubt it. I think it’s like those marshmallow tests for patience in children. Originally people thought they proved that people were poor because they could not put off immediate gratification, and then later they looked at the data gain and found that poor kids eat the marshmallow they can see, because they don’t believe the tester’s promise that there will be two later if they leave it alone. Saporita cracks out the flour and oil to makes fritters and cakes, and does precisely nothing but bake and eat for twenty days.
She’s worried hubby is going to come back, so she tries something kind of cool: She makes a giant spindle out of an Indian vegetable marrow (basically a zucchini) and tries to drop spindle all of the fabric at once off a balcony. Instead of the usual dish of water, she has a big caldron of macaroni broth, so she has both lubricant and snack. People wandering by think this is marvellously funny, and this attracts some faeries. .The faeries agree, so they bless the house, such that all the flax gets spun, woven and whitened.
Saporita thinks this is great, but she knows she can’t depend on whatever magic caused this. When her husband comes home, she makes sure he finds her in bed. She’s under the covers, and has some hazelnuts about her. As they talk, she shifts back and forward on them to make cracking noises.
“Are you sick?” he asks.
“Couldn’t be worse. I barely have a complete bone in my body” she says. “I’m pretty close to dead, and my mother will starve because you haven’t paid her. Still, you got your cloth, so, that’s a good thing. Anyhow, I’m not doing this again.”
He feels abashed and says “Oh, your mum warned me about this. My bad entirely. You just hang on, I’m going to get you a doctor, and even if it costs me an eye, we’ll get you healthy again.” Saporita waits for him to leave, then eats the hazelnuts and throws the shells out the window. The doctor comes, and does what’s usual in the period. He checks her pulse and looks at her stool and smells her urine. These are in separate containers – the chamber pot and the night vase, and if you’ve wondered what the guy is holding on the cover of Art and Academe, you now know.
The famous doctor says Saporita needs to be bled, because she’s not had any exercise. The husband thinks he’s a charlatan, gives him a coin called a carlion, and sends him off with curses..He’s about to head off for another doctor, when Spaorita says “No, the sight of you has cured me.” and leaves bed. He embraces her and promises she wont have to work anymore, because you can’t have, and I believe this is what he means, a goddess and a woman who picks cabbages in the same form. So, there’s your moral – women of quality will literally be killed by manual work, which is why it is for peasants to do. The Venetian nobles listening ot this lap it up, because they are terrible people.
The Three Crowns
Time for some faux-Jacobean from Burton.
Marchetta is stolen by the wind, and carried to the house of a ghula, whence, after various accidents, receiving a buffet, she goeth forth disguised in man’s clothing. She wendeth to the palace of a king, where the queen becometh enamoured of her, and because her love meeteth with no corresponding feelings, accuseth her to her husband of having tempted her to a deed of shame. Thereupon Marchetta is condemned to be hanged, but by the virtue of a charm that had been given to her by the ghula, she is saved, and at last becometh queen.
There’s a king without kids, and he’s dramatic about it. Rather than just adopting, he goes around sighing and talking about the destruction of his house. He’s moaning on in the garden one night when a voice answers him from the bushes “Oh, King”, says whatever is in the shrubbery “would you prefer a daughter who will fly away from you, or a son who will destroy you?” The king doesn’t know, so he wants to have a word with his advisors.
He goes back to his rooms and rouses out his counsellors. “Discourse on this entirely theoretical question, in the middle of the night!” he commands. Some say to go for a son, because honour before life, as everyone passes away. Honour makes you remembered. Honour is glory, which never fades. Some say to choose a daughter, because honour is just an idea. What makes you remembered is descendants. Life is a prerequisite to love, and to wealth, and these are the practical tools for the construction of a legacy. The also point out that having a patricidal son is not very honourable, and losing a daughter by flight or lewdness isn’t much shame on a father. Team XY rallies with the “You have a duty to have a son because we live in a patriarchy and you need a strong heir – think of the welfare of the common people!” Team XX says “So, you think while the son is destroying him the realm is just going to stand around and watch? Sounds like a civil war to us, and in war, it’s the peasants who suffer.”
The king, having determined that his counsellors are not a cheat code in this game, goes to the garden and calls out again. He’s decided on a girl, because who wants to be murdered and have his kingdom burned down? He answers the voice and goes home. Then we quote the translation “the sun invites’ the hours of the day to take a view of the small ill-made folk of the Antipodes” and we wonder which creatures he means. Moving on…the girl is born in the usual way, and named Marchetta. She is raised with great tutors, good guards, and perfect diligence. He thinks that all of this care can undo the bad influence of her birth.
The father engages his daughter off to King Picrdiscnno, and sends her to that kingdom to marry, but she is swept away by a great wind. It carries her to the house of a ghula, in the dark of a forest. .There’s something here about being struck down by the plague because he has killed Pitone the Infected. Pitone is a version of “Python” so…it might be related to the death of a dragon. There’s an old woman watching the place on behalf of the ghula.
The old woman says “You’re lucky the mistress is not home. She eats nothing but people. I’m not sure why she’s not eaten me. It might be that she needs a servant, or it might be that I have fainting spells, heart disease, urinary tract stones, and flatulence, so she thinks I’ll taste terrible. Tell you what, if you do all of the cleaning, I’ll hide you when she comes and smuggle you food. Who knows what the future might bring if we are wise and patient?”.
Marchetta takes the deal. She makes the floors so clean you could eat macaroni off them. She uses lard to polish the walnut furniture to a mirror finish. Then she makes the bed and hides in a corn cask as she hears the ghula coming.
The ghula says “Who has put the house in order?” The old woman claims it was her. The ghula finds that hard to believe because the woman, who is called Pentatola, has never done this before. She leaves on her ghula business, so Marchetta emerges and removes all of the cobwebs, shines the copperware and soaks the laundry. The ghula returns and priases the old woman, then goes off ghulanating again.
The old woman says “Here’s an idea. Make a dainty thing that’ll suit the ghula’s taste and I’ll try to get a promise out of her. Wait until she swears by the three crowns, or she can still eat you.” Marchetta agrees to this and makes a feast. It’s a goose gibbet stew, with a spit-roast goose stuffed with lard, garlic and onions. She makes some “priest chokers” and lays a table with rose and orange leaves. A priest choker is a sort of gnocchi, eaten with gravy or butter.
The ghula arrives and wants to know who has made this feast. Her personality traits seem to change when she eats. The old woman says “Don’t ask, just be happy”. The ghula says that, by the Three Words of Naples she would give the cook her eyeballs. Then she swears by the Three Bows and Arrows she would enshrine the chef in her heart. Then she swears a long oath which I’ll quote:
“I swear it by the three candles, which are lit when a deed or a will is written by night; by the three witnesses, who cause a man to be hanged; by the three feet of rope that twist the man that is hanged ; by the three things that chase a man from his house, stink, smoke, and a wicked woman ; by the three things which wear out a house, fritters, warm bread, and maccaroni; by the three women and a goose which make up a market ; by the three F’s of fried fish, cold fish, and stewed fish ; by the three first singers of Naples, John de la Carrejola, Gossip Junno, and the king of music; by the three S’s which are needful to a lover, solitude, solicitude, and secrecy ; by the three things which are needful to a merchant credit, spirit, and fair fortune ; by the three sort of folk to whom the whore holds, the boasters, the beauteous youths, and the spiteful; by the three things most important to the thief, eyes to lighten well, claws to grapple well, and feet to disappear well ; by the three things which are the ruin of youths, gambling, women, and taverns; by the three virtues necessary to a bailiff, sight, speed, and success ; by the three things useful to a courtier, deceit, phlegm, and fortune ; by the three things needful to a pimp, large heart, great prattling, and small shame ; by the three tllings which are observed by a doctor, the pulse, the face, and the night-vase.’ Marchetta ignores all of this until the ghula says “By my three crowns, if I ever know the industrious, good housewife who hath done me such good service, I will do her more caresses and kindnesses than she can imagine”.
“I’m here” , says Marchetta, sliding out of her barrel.
The ghula says “Yuo should have kicked me, because you know more than I do. You’ve played me so I won’t eat you. Instead I’ll treat you like a daughter. Here are the keys of the house. Just one thing – don’t use this final key. It opens a room in my chamber which is just for me. Do right by me and, by the three crowns, I’ll make sure you have a great marriage.” Marchetta agrees, but she’s curious, so when the ghula goes out enghulianating, she opens the door.
Inside are three women, asleep, on thrones, arrayed in cloth of gold. This story predates Bluebeard, so they are all alive. They are, the narratorial voice tells us, the daughters of the ghula. She’s put them here because there’s a doom upon them, that they will face a great hardship unless a princess wakes them. Marchetta fails a Sneak roll and wakes them with the sound of her shoes upon the floor. The women ask for food, and she bakes them eggs, which shows she has a practical turn of mind for a princess. This rings them back, fully, to wakeful life, so they go out into the house for some fresh air. The ghula arrives and is angry, so she slaps Marchetta.
The princess responds by begging to be allowed to leave and travel the world to seek her fortune. The ghula knows that you can’t get good housekeepers, so she apologises and says she won’t do it again, but the princess is adamant, so she’s allowed to leave. The ghula gives her a ring and, at Marchetta’s request, a suit of mens clothes. The ring’s magical, so that if you twist it a certain way and think of the ghula, in a moment of crisis, aid will come. The men’s clothes aren’t magical, but they are extremely costly and in Mythic Europe, that’s almost like magic. .
Marchetta is heading through the woods, and meets a king. “What ho, handsome youth!” says the king “Who are you” Where are you from? Where are you going?'” Marchetta says she’s a merchant’s son whose mother has died, and is fleeing her evil stepmother. The king thinks that’s an entirely reasonable explanation for hiking through the woods near nightfall in sumptuous clothes, so he offers Marchetta a job as a page. They head back to his palace, and meet the queen.
Things go badly here, because the Queen immediately wants to find out what’s in the new page’s trousers. She struggles with her feelings for a few days, but the then gives in and calls Marchetta to a private meeting. She then makes a really arduous metaphor the need of her garden to absorb Marchetta’s bodily fluids, which sounds like something out of Doctor Strangelove. She then goes through a couple of other metaphors, one of which is pretty straightforward about a ship in a gulf, but the other is about how Neapolitan schoolboys were punished with the “horse” which I don’t understand at all. The “horse” is, in this case, a technique of corporal punishment where a boy is held on the shoulders of another, but upside down, so he can be struck on the buttocks by a cane by a third boy, appointed by the teacher. I have no idea how any of that fits in. Then there’s a sort of key and lock metaphor, and the Queenb talking about how she needs healing quickly, and a pun about how Marchetta, not being Mercury, has not a caduceus. This is all terrible clever in period, I presume, but I’m skipping it all, with the exception of the way Neapolitan schoolboys are punished, because House Tytalus has roots in Naples, and they have an agogic training regimen. Let’s move on: Marchetta says no.
The queen says that when a woman of high degree is slighted, she bathes in the blood of her foe. This is not, Marchetta knows, either true or strictly sane, but she keeps that to herself. The queen puts on the waterworks and goes to the king. “What’s the problem?” he asks, being a guy and wanting to fix things. She answers with an extended series of examples of unlikely ingratitude and says unless he fixes it, she’ll go back to her father’s house. The king can’t follow what she’s talking about, so he asks her again.
“Oh, your page tried to have sex with me.” she lies.
The king takes her word for it, and acts decisively. Marchetta finds herself tied up and at the gibbet before you can get through a paragraph, which in this book is incredibly quick. She thinks that now’s the time to open the Matrix of Leadership and twists the ring. A great voice crashes through the air saying “Let her go! She is a woman!”. Everyone nearby fails their Brave checks and heads for the hills. Merchant leave their goods. Soldiers flee their posts. Marchetta is left standing alone in the middle of an empty town.
The voice is so powerful it shakes the ground, and is heard at the distant palace. The king, who does not need to make a Brave check because he’s out of range, demands Marchetta be bought before him. He says “So, who are you really?” and she gives her story up until this point. Literally, it is repeated in abbreviated form in the text. Were these people paid by the minute? This king is buddies with the king of Valletescosse, and knows his fiancé was whisked off by the wind, so that all sounds entirely plausible to him.
The king, who, as we have noted before, is not one for reflective pauses, has the queen dragged to the shoreline, has weights tied to her feet, and then has her pushed into the briny deeps. Oh, no! However will he father an heir without a wife. Time to marry Marchetta. He sends invitations to her family to attend the wedding. The moral is that “God finds a safe harbour for ships in trouble.” which would be less disturbing if the author hadn’t used ships as a sexual metaphor earlier. What the King of Valletescosse thinks about the business is notmentioned – he doesn;t even seem to get an invite, which is hard luck. You’d think you’d send him a save the date so he could blow you off and send you whatever the medieval equivalent of a toaster is, but that doesn’t happen.
Games From Folktales 